A Note on Disclosure Practices
A quick note regarding the recent New York Times piece, “An Army of Paid Creators Is Carpeting the Web With Political Content.”
The piece mentioned one of People First’s campaigns, Protect What’s Human, and said: “But the job listing made no mention of who funded the effort or any requirement to disclose that it was not organic content.”
Creators don’t get access to the full brief, which outlines things like disclosure requirements, unless they’ve been approved to participate in the campaign. This keeps creators from doing end runs around us and bothering clients directly instead of using the platform, and protects sensitive campaigns from going public before they’re supposed to.
Here’s an example of live content with a clear paid partnership disclosure.
People First follows all FTC, FEC, and platform disclosure guidelines, unlike many of the fly-by-night companies we were grouped with in the article. Here’s a recent Substack where we call for transparency and disclosure.
The “strategists” who don’t follow these requirements are doing their clients and creators a disservice. (And in California, they could now face big fines!) Plus, the evidence is fairly clear that followers appreciate transparency.
You may find this recent study interesting. It notes that Democrats favor disclosure more than Republicans. As the party that cares about the truth, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
– Ryan Davis, Founding Partner & CEO, People First
A quick note regarding the recent New York Times piece, “An Army of Paid Creators Is Carpeting the Web With Political Content.”
The piece mentioned one of People First’s campaigns, Protect What’s Human, and said: “But the job listing made no mention of who funded the effort or any requirement to disclose that it was not organic content.”
Creators don’t get access to the full brief, which outlines things like disclosure requirements, unless they’ve been approved to participate in the campaign. This keeps creators from doing end runs around us and bothering clients directly instead of using the platform, and protects sensitive campaigns from going public before they’re supposed to.
Here’s an example of live content with a clear paid partnership disclosure.
People First follows all FTC, FEC, and platform disclosure guidelines, unlike many of the fly-by-night companies we were grouped with in the article. Here’s a recent Substack where we call for transparency and disclosure.
The “strategists” who don’t follow these requirements are doing their clients and creators a disservice. (And in California, they could now face big fines!) Plus, the evidence is fairly clear that followers appreciate transparency.
You may find this recent study interesting. It notes that Democrats favor disclosure more than Republicans. As the party that cares about the truth, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
– Ryan Davis, Founding Partner & CEO, People First
